Currently, in physical distribution service, most products are transported by delivery trucks specifically arranged for product quality assurance with respect to such conditions as temperature, humidity, and impact during delivery.
Further, instead of conventional shopping wherein customers go to retail shops and bring back purchased products therefrom, Internet shopping is becoming prevalent to cause a significant increase in physical distribution from delivery centers to delivery destinations without customers having to go to real shops for product purchasing.
Under these circumstances, it has been desired to provide further reliable quality assurance for products in delivery due to the need for higher security and safety in physical distribution based on Internet shopping and physical distribution in business-to-business transactions. More specifically, a higher level of reliability in quality assurance has been desired in increasing physical distribution of medical products and frozen foods requiring strict temperature control, clothing items susceptible to humidity, and household electric appliances containing precision devices vulnerable to impact, for example.
In Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2009-9294, there is disclosed a technique for implementing a product delivery system wherein temperature data is acquired from a temperature sensor attached to each product in delivery, current location data of a delivery truck is acquired through the Global Positioning System (GPS), and based on this data thus acquired, the quality conditions and current location of each product in delivery are indicated in real time to the persons concerned at a delivery source, deliverer location, and delivery destination.